Here is how you can create a healthy team environment characterised by minimal politics, clear direction and team high morale

Maanda Tshifularo, CEO at SuperLead and host of the Leadership books unpacked podcast on Cliff Central, shares insights from the book, the Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. He discusses the importance of creating healthy organizations, and why these outperform smart ones.

Imagine a thriving organization characterised by minimal politics, clear direction, high morale, super low turnover and a dynamic environment. This may seem like a far-fetched ideal, but one of my favourite authors Patrick Lencioni argues that the core difference between thriving companies and struggling ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are.

He says when an organization is healthy - which means it can unite its smart, strategic elements with a strong culture fit - it is unbeatable.

The case for organizational health

The health of an organization is very much like the health of a person. You may have the best ideas, ambitions and resources, but if you’re in poor health, you can’t execute them or thrive. The cost of poor health is high and the last two years have powerfully illustrated that. Health is central to growth and performance and that’s why healthy organizations consistently out-compete smart organizations.

What does a ‘healthy organization’ look like?

It’s hard to pin down, but you know when its missing. It shows up as politics, confusion, poor performance and eventually customer attrition. In an unhealthy organization, people feel diminished and uninspired, which manifests as work related stress, anxiety and subpar delivery.

All leaders should be asking how to keep teams healthy; that is balance the processes and systems with the elements of trust, clarity and accountability that underpin a healthy organization.

Lencioni says there are four disciplines that leaders must adopt to create a healthy organization.

Discipline 1: Build a cohesive leadership team that overcomes the five dysfunctions of a team.

A cohesive leadership team is crucial, in its absence, the whole structure beneath is shaky.

It’s important to keep in mind that acting as a team is a strategic choice, it doesn’t just happen. It requires deliberate inclusion with individuals whose goals are intertwined, dependent and winning is truly a team sport. Most organizations have talented individuals, but they are not working together. Each team is focused on its own departmental agenda, resulting in dispersed efforts and lack of coherence.

I recall seeing this in action early on in my career, when during a strategy session, the HR leader was relegated to only speaking on people issues and less sought out for strategic input. This signalled that there were fault lines within the organization, and everyone’s contribution wasn’t equal.

In order to develop a competitive advantage, leaders should address the five dysfunctions of a team. These are.

1.????Absence of trust. In dysfunctional teams people can’t be genuine, transparent and ask for help. The default mode of engagement is cautious and closed. To do away with this, leaders can do practical things, such as share more about themselves, for example talk about how they grew up, the trials and tribulations they have faced. This creates a sense of relatability and allows team members build empathy for each other and give each other benefit of a doubt when things go wrong.

2.????Fear of Conflict. Dysfunctional teams go at each other viciously or they just avoid conflict altogether, leaving issues unresolved. In this environment, politics is rife and unhealthy behaviours such as side meetings occur. Leaders should encourage healthy debate around common decisions to avoid issues festering and causing damage down the line.

3.????Lack of commitment- True commitment comes when people are all invested in a goal. I subscribe to the adage that ‘People have to have their say, but not always their way.’ Having your voice heard allows you to feel involved, and even if a final decision is counter to what you prefer, you can get behind it.

4.????Avoiding accountability. In healthy teams there is peer-to-peer accountability for achieving excellence.

5.????Lack of attention to results. In healthy teams there is a focus on overall team success, not individual goals and personal status. I recall seeing this is action when I was part of a team led by someone I revered. At the time, a division in the business wasn’t doing well. He brought the entire organization together to collectively solve for the struggling team and took it a step further by re-assigning strong people from other teams to strengthen that department. The decision wasn’t easy, but it was one that leveraged the talents within the team for the health of the overall organization.

Discipline 2: Create clarity

Where there isn’t clarity there is a lot of confusion. Lencioni says organizations must answer 6 main questions to achieve clarity. These are: ?

·??????Why do we exist? This is a core question that’s all about building a sense of purpose. However, it’s scary how many organizations don’t have a clear answer for this. Instead, there’s a tendency to compose big mission statements and in that, lose a true sense of why they exist. It is important for leadership to be crystal clear about this and be able to share this with people. One example I experienced of this was at Discovery. The company’s purpose statement is instilled, reinforced and lived well.

·??????How will we succeed? This speaks to strategy, the set of choices and decisions that help us succeed. These can be boiled down a handful of strategic anchors that guide all decisions at all levels.

·??????What do we do? A straightforward list of key activities which must be articulated clearly. This is especially important when an organization undergoes big changes or has pivoted as many have recently done. Some employees may still be doing what they did in the past despite the organization evolving, so this is a conversation that needs to be re-visited now and then.

·??????What’s most important, right now? Identify a single, temporary thematic goal which?is then translated into a set of supporting objectives .

·??????Who must do what? Define clear roles and responsibilities for each member of the leadership team.

·??????How do we behave? Identify values that define how people must behave to succeed. Let these values be a driving factor, especially on hiring and letting people go. Leaders should also coach people to live according to these values.

Discipline 3:?Align the organisation by over-communicating the answers to each of the six questions. Employees need to hear the messages over and over before they understand and believe what leaders are saying.

Discipline 4:?Reinforce clarity. Align systems of recruitment and onboarding, performance management, reward and recognition, and letting people go with organisational values and priorities.

Silos and healthy organizations

Unhealthy organizations tend to have silos. Patrick was asked about how to break down silos and?have observed that organizations which rarely have silos are often emergency responders such as firefighters. They galvanise around dealing with the situation and forget?differences.

The key to killing silos is to use a crisis as a clarity setting moment that gives you a rallying cry to unite the team. It is often a moment that creates a sharp focus on what’s important now. Ideally, once the organization has been reset, leaders step in and sustain it with healthy principles.